Barely visible, in a corner of a North Vancouver strip mall, hides a sizeable (1.5 acre) botanical garden with an astonishing history of over 50 years, which is free to the public. Flanked by the Starbucks and the JJ Bean (which has a very nice patio on the garden side), you can enter the gardens through the arched enclosure. The circular paths make for great wandering, the plants are labeled and there are a gazillion pokemon stops!
So get yourself a coffee, and explore!
Entrance from Gladstone Ave
Entrance from the Park & Tilford parking lot
The garden is much MUCH larger than you'd think, and has a sizeable rose garden and a really nice Oriental garden. It contains over 150 trees. The "Park & Tilford Gardens" site has a detailed history page, from which I'll borrow some information (shown in italics).
The shopping centre provides easy parking (not to mention that it hosts my favourite liquor store with one of the largest craft beer selections on the North Shore: "The Gull" -- okay so I did mention it :) ).
The Park & Tilford Gardens' site tells us that "The story of Park & Tilford Gardens begins in 1962 when Park & Tilford Distilleries engaged Harry Webb of Justice & Webb Landscape Architects to create an outdoor space for their staff to use during their lunch breaks. "
The seven gardens that Harry Webb designed originally are mainly still standing today, including the Colonnade Garden, Rhododendron Garden, Flower Garden, Oriental Garden, Native Wood Garden, Rose Garden and Greenhouse Garden.
The garden opened to the public in January 1969
As you would expect from a botanical garden, the plants and trees are labeled - which really helps in case you see something you'd like to get for your garden. The "Friends of Park & Tilford Garden" or FOGS hold an annual plant sale and it looks like you can volunteer to help in the garden - and learn!
The four "Acer palmatum" (Japanese Maple) were donated by City of North Vancouver's sister city Chiba, Japan, and were planted by their mayor in 1970.
The Oriental garden has a wonderful arched bridge, and a "Moon Gate"; a circular entrance through a wall with stunning blue terracotta roof tiles.
"George D. Kuhn, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Park and Tilford Distilleries, is credited with conceiving of a set of public display gardens. One of the primary inspirations for Mr. Kuhn was Busch Gardens, created by the Anheuser-Busch brewing company". Based on the plaque, he retired in 1971, shortly after the opening of Park & Tilford Gardens.
George D. Kuhn, former chairman and CEO of Park and Tilford Distilleries Ltd
The North Shore Heritage page has unearthed some great artist renderings of the original garden vision - well worth a look!
In 1984, the Park & Tilford Distilleries closed their North Vancouver site and moved to Montreal. The Gardens also closed and over the next few years fell into disrepair. Many of the features of the Garden were lost and vandalized leaving the Gardens overgrown, weedy and falling apart. Fortunately, the bronze busts of Linnaeus and the plant explorers (David Douglas and Archibald Menzies) were given to VanDusen Gardens for safekeeping.
The Gardens seem to have a history of statue disappearance: a 5-foot tall verdigris statue of Neptune, which was placed in the Colonnade Gardens, was lost, and its replacement, 3 bronze frogs, were stolen in 2018.
Harry Webb, landscape architect for Park & Tilford Gardens, with a statue of Neptune. Photo courtesy of Adrienne Brown -- from North Shore Heritage page .
In 1996, the Friends of the Gardens Society (FOGS) was formed as a Volunteer Group to augment the Gardens and educate the public about gardening on the North Shore.
From the North Shore Heritage page: After significant lobbying by the Cloverley Resident’s Association, and with the leadership of Councillor Stella Jo Dean, a protective covenant was placed on the Gardens, in return for rezoning of the adjacent land from industrial to commercial to allow for the development of the Park & Tilford Mall. The story goes that on the night of the Council Meeting which would decide the fate of the Gardens, Councillor Stella Jo Dean checked herself out of hospital with a broken ankle in order to cast the deciding vote in favour of the re-zoning and protective covenant. She is honoured by a bronze plaque in the Gardens today.
Stella Jo Dean also has a plaza named after her! She sounds like quit a character and I'll see if I can find more details.
This totem pole in the Park & Tilford Gardens was carved by Cody Mathias, from the Coast Salish nation and grandson of Chief Joe Capilano (also known as Joe Mathias).
As Cody explains: "when I started that’s all I did: totem poles. I never carved anything else, but then I got into them more and more, and I got better at it. I started work to expand my work for other animals and sea creatures like killer whales, seals, otters. The sea of water—all sea animals I like to carve but the most powerful is what we call the yew’yews, the killer whale. And land has even more powerful animals, and the bear is the strongest one—we call it mixalht. Then there’s the wolf pack—they are family oriented, hunt in packs, keep the family together, and feed the family. When they come back after the hunt they bring food for the young ones. All these animals are from here, and they need to eat and be healthy too.”
"Eagle and Woman" Carver Cody Mathias
Today after 50 years in existence, Park & Tilford Gardens is the only example in Canada of a free, publicly accessible botanical garden which forms part of a shopping centre
Also interestingly, a 1950 Park & Tilford Reserve Blended Whiskey shows on "Master of Malt" with the description "A rare bottle of Park & Tilford Reserve Blended Whiskey, produced in America all the way back in the 1950s. Sadly, the label looks to have seen better days, with parks of it suffers scuffs and a tear to the corner. Fortunately, the bottle remains sound."
(their typo, not mine) but with a note that
" Sorry about this.... We can't actually ship Park & Tilford Reserve Blended Whiskey - 1950s to the Canada at the moment (although we're working hard to fix that)."
I wonder how they will fix this... :)
As a curious side note, I found an article in the 1942 New York Times, to say "Park & Tilford Buys Distillery" - sadly too small to read ...
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